Media Mentions

A U.S. congressional committee says Donald Trump “engaged in a criminal conspiracy” with his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, turning up pressure on the Department of Justice to investigate whether the former president broke the law. In a court filing, the House of Representatives panel probing last year’s Capitol riot says the evidence suggests Mr. Trump and members of his campaign team committed fraud and obstruction of Congress. ... Laurence Tribe, a retired Harvard law professor who once taught Mr. Garland, said he wasn’t sure why the Attorney-General “is doing as little as he apparently is doing.” He said Mr. Garland might believe it would be hard to prove Mr. Trump had the requisite state of mind to commit a crime because he may really have believed he had won the election. But Mr. Tribe said he did not think such a concern was a good reason not to investigate.

Fears over environmental catastrophes are growing among humanitarian experts and environmental organizations as the Russian invasion of Ukraine moves into its second week. On Friday, over 1,000 organizations and individuals from more than 75 countries released an open letter expressing their solidarity with the people of Ukraine and voicing concern over the war’s environmental and human toll. ... Alex Whiting, a Harvard Law professor and former prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, said the way the crime is defined, requiring a balancing between military advantage and environmental damage, coupled with the extremely high threshold of “widespread, long-term and severe damage” makes it extremely unlikely the prosecutor’s office will focus on this provision.

The American Institute has designated Nora Freeman Engstrom of Stanford Law School, Reporter for the Restatement of the Law Third, Torts: Concluding Provisions, as the R. Ammi Cutter Reporter’s Chair, and Henry E. Smith of Harvard Law School, Reporter for the Restatement of the Law Fourth, Property, as the A. James Casner Reporter’s Chair. Chairs are designated upon recommendation of the Director to the President of ALI.

Former U.S. Army prosecutor Glenn Kirschner urged again for Donald Trump to be indicted after the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021 attack against the U.S. Capitol submitted a court filing on Wednesday—saying it had "a good-faith basis for concluding" that the former president engaged in a "criminal conspiracy." ... "The filing on behalf of the US House said: 'The select committee has a good-faith basis for concluding that the president and members of his campaign engaged in a criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States.' DOJ surely has the same, AG Garland," Laurence Tribe, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard, tweeted.

When Don Creery punches in as a driver for Uber, he’s loath to cross the bridge from Seattle to Bellevue, because when he does, the minimum pay he’s guaranteed disappears. “If I get a ride request and it appears it’s going to the Eastside, I don’t take it,” he said.  ... “This is major legislation that would set a lot of precedence in the state that could have real unintended consequences, and it needs to be really carefully considered,” said Terri Gerstein, director of the State and Local Enforcement Project at the Harvard Law School Labor and Worklife Program.

An op-ed by Terri Gerstein: When Proposition 22, the (sadly, successful) initiative to strip gig workers of rights, was on the California ballot in 2020, there was immense news coverage and analysis. As gig companies like Uber and Lyft prepare similar attempts across the country, with the goal of ensuring their workers remain non-employees, a similarly high-profile fight is brewing in Massachusetts, where worker, environmental, and racial justice advocates have formed a coalition to gear up for a major battle as a similar measure comes before voters in November.

In September, President Larry Bacow announced that Jim Stock had been named the University’s first vice provost for climate and sustainability, charged with guiding and further developing Harvard’s strategies for advancing climate research and its global impact through close collaboration with students, faculty, staff, and academic leadership from across the University. ... The Gazette spoke with Advisory Committee members Jody Freeman, Jim Engell, and Dan Schrag about the timeliness of the new post, Stock’s unique qualifications for the job, and the ways the committee’s initial conversations are starting to help shape the goals of the new office. This interview was edited for clarity and length.

The Supreme Court looks likely to limit the executive authority to issue sweeping climate rules without new legislation, but it's unclear if they'll unite around broader limits on regulatory power. Catch up fast: The high court held arguments Monday in related cases about now-defunct regulations to curb carbon emissions from the electricity sector, the second-largest U.S. source of heat-trapping gases. A few takeaways: 1. New limits appear likely. Harvard Law professor Richard Lazarus said there appear to be six votes to "align" the case with recent rulings against the federal eviction moratorium and vaccine mandates. That would prompt the court to "sharply cut back on EPA’s authority to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from existing coal-fired power plants," he said via email.

President Biden has nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. Harvard Law School professor Alan Jenkins joins CBS News' Lana Zak to discuss.

Two of the three out-of-circuit judges assigned by U.S. Chief Justice John Roberts to hear an ex-North Carolina assistant federal public defender's Fourth Circuit appeal in her sexual harassment suit suggested Wednesday that the federal judiciary did not seem to have followed its procedures to redress workplace misconduct claims when the public defender aired her allegations. ... Harvard Law School professor Jeannie Suk Gersen, who is representing Roe, rejected what she called false claims by the government that her client failed to file a formal internal complaint with the judiciary. "They were the ones who allegedly forced her to resign and withdraw the claim," Gersen said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin didn’t plan on such fierce military resistance to his invasion of Ukraine, and now he’s predictably lashing out. Russian forces have begun indiscriminately bombing civilian targets, including a missile strike Tuesday in Zhytomyr, 90 miles west of Kyiv, that destroyed the Pavlusenko maternity hospital, according to reporters and Ukraine’s foreign ministry. At least two people died in the bombing. ... But building such a case is complex, and winning one is rare. “There aren’t a lot of war crime prosecutions involving targeting, which are called conduct of hostilities cases,” said Alex Whiting, a professor at Harvard Law School and a former Deputy Prosecutor and Lead Investigator at the ICC. “They’re particularly challenging cases to bring because of the intent requirement. You have to prove the accused intended to target civilians or to use disproportionate force, and that’s often hard.” Historically, prosecutors have favored bringing charges against those responsible for massacres or other more easily demonstrated crimes.

An international coalition of activists and human rights attorneys on Wednesday announced they filed an appeal to the United Nations on behalf of African refugees facing racial discrimination in Ukraine and Poland. The filing follows numerous reports from Black refugees who said they faced segregation, racism and abuse as they tried to flee for safety from war-torn Ukraine to Poland. ... Ronald Sullivan, of the Criminal Justice Institute at Harvard Law School, called it "offensive" and said the media is comparing pain and suffering of different communities. "It is grotesquely ahistorical as well. Europe certainly cannot claim that it has been immune from the pillages of war," Sullivan said Wednesday. "It cannot stand as it's somehow superior in that regard to the Middle East and parts of Africa. So, they're [the media] not only getting the history wrong, but they're perpetrating a very ugly form of racial stereotyping."

Now that we have entered March, warm weather is right around the corner, which means you might be building a long list of books to read outside for when the sun and heat arrive. Whether you have spring break plans that involve reading on the beach or are itching to start a new book, we have recommendations for all kinds of readers. ... Best Women’s History Month read “Civil Rights Queen: Constance Baker Motley and the Struggle for Equality,” by Tomiko Brown-Nagin “This book is a fascinating and incredibly readable biography of a woman who shaped so much of civil rights history, and whose story is not told nearly enough,” Guillory said. “I was totally absorbed while reading this and learned so much!”

Professor Randall Kennedy of Harvard Law School is the author of a number of books, including For Discrimination: Race, Affirmative Action, and the Law, The Persistence of the Color Line: Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency, Sellout: The Politics of Racial Betrayal, and, most recently, Say it Loud!: On Race, Law, History and Culture. Kennedy recently came on the Current Affairs podcast to talk with editor in chief Nathan J. Robinson. This interview has been lightly edited for grammar and clarity.

The debate at the Supreme Court in West Virginia v. EPA could affect the Biden administration's options for meeting its goal of setting the United States on a path to having emissions-free electricity by 2035 and being carbon-free across the economy by mid-century. "It is clear that Congress and the [Supreme] Court think that EPA should be regulating greenhouse gases from the power sector," [Carrie] Jenks said. "The question is how, and we don't know the how, because we don't have a rule from EPA. So that's what's unique about this case, and which is making everyone focused on it, because the court obviously took the case and wants to say something about it."

As the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described Russia's missile strikes in civilian areas of Kharkiv as "war crimes." Tuesday, Zelenskyy accused Russia of engaging in terrorism, a day after Karim Khan, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, said he would open an investigation into potential war crimes. ... "From an international law perspective, a war crime is any conduct – whether an act or an omission – that fulfills two cumulative criteria," Dustin Lewis, research director for the Harvard Law School Program on International Law and Armed Conflict, told USA TODAY. "First, the conduct must be committed with a sufficient connection to an armed conflict. Second, the conduct must constitute a serious violation of the laws and customs of international humanitarian law that has been criminalized by international treaty or customary law."

An article co-written by Robert Greenwald: As the United States heads into its third year in the fight against COVID-19, Americans have seen firsthand the importance of a robust and comprehensive response to public health emergencies and epidemics. The same is true for chronic viral hepatitis, a condition that impacts an estimated 3.3 million Americans. Without comprehensive plans to eliminate viral hepatitis, the US will fall short of reaching the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) goal of fully eliminating the virus by 2030. We call on policy makers at the state level to advance comprehensive, equity-focused proposals that will adequately address and meet the WHO’s goal of eliminating viral hepatitis by 2030.

Vladimir Putin's decision to invade Ukraine has drawn condemnation from Russians all around the world — including from those at home, who are protesting at great risk. As the deadly conflict in Ukraine continues to unfold more than 4,500 miles away, the Klebanov family is watching from afar and joining the chorus of Russian Americans who are condemning Putin's war. Sam Klebanov is originally from St. Petersburg, Russia, but immigrated to the United States when he was 6. Now an adult, his family owns Petropol, a small bookstore in Newton, Massachusetts, that specializes in Russian literature. ... "[For] A lot of Russian people, this war is not being fought in their name," said Ariella Katz (JD '23). The Katz family have long been at odds with the way Putin has run Russia. But this time, they say he's gone too far. "I feel embarrassed, I feel embarrassed. Because what else can I feel? What else can one feel when Russians are waging war?" questioned Katz's mother, Irena. Many miles away, Ariella Katz's friends held the same "no to war" signs during protests in Russia. The 23-year-old Harvard student has often visited Russia and is involved in grassroots activism. She's determined to show the world that most Russians are against the war. Police in cities like Moscow have clamped down on protests in recent days, trying to silence some of Katz's friends. "I'm really afraid for their safety," she said. "Some of my friends have been detained. I know of people who have been beaten up."

An article written by Amre Metwally: As I watch the videos and images pouring out of Ukraine, I am reminded of a conversation I had once with a colleague while I worked at YouTube. My job entailed writing the platform’s policies for political extremism and graphic violence, and during high-profile conflicts in war zones, terrorist attacks, and other sensitive moments, I had to help decide what content would stay up and what would not. After one particularly tense day involving state violence on separatist fighters, I turned, exhausted, to a colleague and asked, “What would we have done if YouTube existed at the start of the Iraq war?” We paused, considering the gravity of the question, and then turned back to the mountain of work in front of us. I knew it was only a matter of time before a full-scale ground conflict would erupt and be recorded from start to finish for us all to consume. (Of course, since its founding two years after the war began, YouTube has had countless videos documenting the American-induced tragedy in Iraq.)

An article co-written by Laurence Tribe: Granting a petition by several states and coal companies, the supreme court on 28 February will address what appears to be a technical legal question: does the Environmental Protection Agency have authority to calculate CO2 emissions targets for power plants based on mitigation techniques involving steps “beyond the fence-line” of individual plants? In truth, the matter the court is considering implicates –and imperils – the federal government’s power to fashion flexible solutions not only to global warming but to all manner of complex problems.

Ketanji Brown Jackson closed her remarks at the White House ceremony for her Supreme Court nomination by paying tribute to Constance Baker Motley, the first Black woman federal judge in U.S. history. Jackson, 51, who would make history as the Supreme Court’s first Black woman justice, noted she and Motley share a coincidental connection: They were born the same day 49 years apart. ... “One can see perhaps a parallel in the way that some are criticizing Judge Jackson’s career as a public defender–-or really her two-year stint as a public defender–-somehow implying that she is not suited to the judiciary because of that experience representing criminal defendants,” said [Tomiko] Brown-Nagin, who is dean of Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.